‘Tennis-choked’ Grubb joins coaching ranks

Matt Grubb has certainly watched plenty of tennis. And he’s both competed in and coached other sports.

So he might as well try his hand at heading up some tennis.

“I’ve learned a lot about the sport, and I’ve seen enough college tennis the last four years to choke a goat, so I figured, ‘Why not?’” Grubb said of accepting the boys head coaching position at Elkhart Memorial High School, where wife Christy will be one of his assistants this fall.

The college tennis that Matt Grubb alludes to consisted of following his daughter, Katie, during her four years at Bowling Green State University in Ohio.

Katie Grubb, serving a sports marketing internship in South Carolina, finished her Division I Falcon career with records of 59-41 in singles and 73-39 in doubles. As a senior (21-12 in singles, 26-7 in doubles, 47-19 overall), she paced Bowling Green in both doubles and overall winning percentage, and was second in total wins.

Grubb capped her Memorial career in 2009 as the winningest girl in Elkhart County history with a 90-9 record, entirely at No. 1 singles. She never lost a Northern Lakes Conference match.

Of course, none of that will directly help her father now.

Matt Grubb, who was a track and cross country runner for the Chargers in the early 1980s and has been a Memorial girls tennis assistant, replaces Mike Hartnett, who guided the boys program to its first sectional crown in 35 years last fall.

That break-through team, however, graduated five starters.

“It’s usually not a good sign when your two most experienced players are sophomores, and I’ve told them they’re my leaders,” Grubb said, referring to Jon Bailey and Stephen Tefft, who played No. 2 doubles together last fall, “or when you have as many freshmen out there as the freshman volleyball team, but let’s see how it goes.”

Here’s some of how it’s going for some other area teams:

 Wawasee has a new coach, too. Vince Rhodes, who played for the Warriors before graduating in 1976. With 20 players out, the rebuilding program features more than twice as many participants as last fall.

 Elkhart Central has the distinction of not having a single senior on its roster, but does have 11 sophomores. Junior Eric Burton is projected to take over at 1 singles after going 12-10 last season at primarily No. 2.

 For Penn, which has won 11 straight sectional crowns, Northern Indiana Conference MVP Michael Wang is among the returnees. Wang closed 19-4 at 1 singles as a sophomore last fall. Sean Anderson, 25-1 at 1 doubles, also is back, while his three-year partner and fellow state qualifier, Brad Walter, has graduated.